*Trigger Warning*
Lights... Shadows... That's all I can see. Lights and shadows.
My head is spinning. Everything is blurry. My body feels heavy, and I can't tell anything anymore.
I don't even know where I am anymore.
"Fight it, please," I hear my mom beg...
But I don't know how to fight this. I don't know what I'm fighting anymore... I don't... Where am I?
I try to lift my head to look around, but my body feels like it's paralyzed. I can feel bouncing, but I don't remember getting into a car... Did I even leave the club? Why do I feel like a rag doll? Why am I bouncing?...
I look around as much as I can, but I still don't see much. Flashes of light every once and a while, but not enough light for me to make anything out. After... After some time, I feel everything come to a stop. I try to lift my head again but still have no luck. I can't even turn it to the side.
I hear something open next to me and light breaks through it with a single shadow in the middle of it. I hear laughing. It's evil. Kind of like those laughs the villains have in cartoons.
"It's funny how good you look, even when you're not there," I hear the shadow say before I feel a pair of hands on my hips. I can feel my body get pulled closer to the shadow. Closer to the darkness.
My mom starts screaming in my head, sounding like an alarm, telling me I need to fight whatever's wrong with me. Screaming that I need to get away. However, all the screaming does if give me a headache.
"I wish you were smart enough to realize just how much I would have taken care of you," I hear the shadow say. I feel my legs get pulled apart and feel pressure against my crotch and thighs. The shadow looms over me, blocking out the light that is shining around it in an eclipse. "You and I would have made amazing business partners, and with all the hours you would have spent with me, you would have learned to love me the way I love you." The shadow grabs my shirt and pulls the top half of my body up, my arms and head falling limp the second I was forced up. A hand roughly grabs the back of my head, wrapping its fingers in my hair, and it pulls my head up. Rough lips slam into mine, a tongue pushes its way into my mouth and another kiss is stolen from me.
Once the shadow is done with the one-sided kiss, it pulls away and I feel arms wrap around me before I'm lifted up into the air. The shadow turns around, shutting the car door before I feel it bounce me up and down a couple of time, making sure it has a tight hold of me from under my legs and around my back. Once it's done, I feel it start to walk forward, into a dark room... Or maybe it's a cave. The blinding light disappears as I hear a roar shake the darkness and causes something behind us to hide the light, allow the darkness to fully overtake everything.
Soon after, the shadow takes me into a new room, and then another, and then another. It takes me into a room on a different level before I feel my back finally touch something soft. I see the shadow remove things off of it, but it just looks like it is removing pieces of itself. I feel hands run up and down my body. I feel my clothes being ripped off of me. I feel a hand wrap around my member and start to stroke it.
"St-stop," I say, tears rolling down my face, trying to move my hand, but it feels like it's chained to weights.
Suddenly, I am brought into darkness. My memory becomes hazy. I am brought out into the park with my parents, but the darkness quickly starts to swallow them whole.
I scream out as I feel something forced into me.
The world starts to shake as the darkness drags my parents to hell.
Tears pour down my face like raindrop down a window, but I can't even find the strength to move my head as lips force themselves onto mine again.
Thunder and lightning crash around me, knocking down everything that made me feel happy. Everything that made me feel safe.
My body feels like ice as lips press against my neck and chest.
The darkness starts to crawl up my legs. I try to kick it off, but it only continues to crawl up, trying to swallow me like how it swallowed my parents.
Hands crawl all over my body and around my neck.
The darkness crawls up my torso, up my neck. I let out a scream as I feel it inch its way onto my face. I feel it move around me, its edges feeling like the ends of a spider's legs. As I scream out, feeling it all start to burn, the edges crawl into my mouth, around my nose, making it impossible to breathe.
I look around, hoping and praying for someone, anyone to help me, but I see no one.
The edges of the darkness start to crawl around my eyes. I can see it. I try to shut them, but...
...
Everything...
...
Everything goes dark.
My memory cuts out.
I feel... like I've been cut open and ripped apart.
...
"You will be okay. You will make it through this."
My mother's voice echoes through my head. She's telling me a lie... How can I make it through something like this? I feel robbed. I feel disgusting. I feel like cockroaches are crawling all over me... The darkness had finally caught up to me.
"Not yet."
I feel my body flowing through the darkness. My mind and heart have stopped. Everything I once had is now gone... How can I ever get past this, when I can't get past what drugs did to my family?
"With help," a new voice says... a voice I haven't heard since I left...
***
My eyes shoot open, and I feel like I'm going to be sick. I instantly sit up and cover my mouth as vomit shoots up my throat and tries to force it's way out. Before it can break through, someone pushes a trash can into my lap, and I don't waste a second. I bury my face in the bucket and throw up everything I had in my stomach. I throw up the disgusted feeling boiling in the bottom, but I can still taste it on my lips and feel some of it still resting there, like mold on food that was left untouched for weeks.
Will that go away... What happened?
"You feeling better," I hear a familiar voice say from my right. I slowly turn my head to look and am surprised to see that it really is Mike.
Shocked, I look around the room and see white walls, a window, and... And medical machines... With an IV bag hooked up into my arm.
"What am I-"
"We're trying to put the pieces together in order to help you, Evan. I'm going to need you to answer a few questions, and please don't hide anything." I blink, confused, but nod my head. "Can you tell me what the last thing you remember from last night was? What do you remember at all about yesterday? And I'm telling you this right now, just in case. Jonathan will not get in trouble for you two dating or doing anything. You're eighteen now, it's legal."
I nod and look down at my lap as Mike grabs the trash can and puts it down on the floor. "Uh, I woke up at Jon's place, and we talked and had a really late breakfast. When we were done, I had him drop me off at my apartment and I started packing my things, knowing that I was going to get kicked out."
"Why would you say that?"
"There's a rule at the club that only people who work at the club are allowed to stay at the apartments. If we quit or get fired, we are forced to leave. And I was quitting yesterday."
I hear him write down everything I say on a notepad before he says, "And then what happened?"
"I, uh... I went to work, and I went to Panda's office. I told him I was quitting."
"How did he react to that?"
I start digging through my memory as things start to get fuzzy from here, however, it isn't as bad as my memory after this point. "He... He was shocked at first. He... He didn't like that I was leaving. He was pretty much begging me to stay. Then... Then he calmed down and went to his personal bar. He said that if this was what I wanted, then he was happy for me. Then, he poured both of us a drink." My eyes widen as something comes to mind. "I'm not going to get in trouble for saying I drank rum, am I?"
Mike chuckles a bit before he reaches over and pats my shoulder. Without really thinking, my body pulls itself away from Mike's touch, making me start to worry. Why did I-
"I promise, you will not get in trouble for drinking alcohol," Mike then says, writing something down in his notes. "Now please, tell me what happened next?"
I look back to him, confused, before I lean back and stare up to the ceiling, trying to piece together anything else from last night. Although this part is still really fuzzy, one point stands out more than anything. "He and I sat on his couch, and we both had one glass of rum. I remember, the rum tasted really weird. I've had it in the past, but it never tasted like this... it was salty... after that, I can't remember anything else."
"Okay," he then says before he reaches over and gently pats my hand. "Now, I'm going to ask you a few questions, and I want you to answer them all honestly. I also want you to stay calm and remember that you're safe now."
I gulp and nod, feeling knots form in my stomach.
"Do you remember leaving the club?"
"No."
"Do you remember going to somebody's house after leaving the club?"
"No; I just said I didn't-"
"Please calm down, Evan. I have to ask these questions."
"But why? What's going on?"
He ignores my questions and asks me, "Do you remember consenting to having sex with someone other than Jonathan yesterday?"
"What?! No! I would never-"
"Evan, please calm down," he says again.
"No! What is going on?! Why do you need to ask me shit like this?! Why am I here?!"
"Evan, calm down. I'll explain everything right now. I just needed to get you to answer these questions first so no one could say that I told you to say anything."
"What are you talking about?"
He opens his mouth to speak, but stops when we hear the door to my room open. We both look and I feel tears build up in my eyes for some reason as Jon steps into the room. He locks his eyes with mine and he slowly covers his mouth before he runs over to me, pushing Mike out of the way so he could wrap his arms tightly around me. Part of me for some reason wants to push him off of me, but the second I feel his tears hit my shoulder, I fight off that feeling as best I can and I try to lean into him without messing with the needles in my arm.
"You guys have perfect timing," Mike then says as he stands up and turns towards the door. "I was just about to tell him what happened, but since you're here, you can explain it."
"Are you fucking kidding me," I hear someone say from the other side of the door. I look and see it open a little bit more and watch Ze walk in... but... no...
"You're a cop?!"
Ze looks my way before he shuts the door behind him, the sunlight bouncing off of the badge on his chest, making it shine. "Sorry Evan. I couldn't have told you."
"Hold up," I say, now pushing Jon away. "What is going on?! If you're a fucking cop, then why were you at the club?! Were you just using me to take down the club or something?! Has everything you told me been a lie?! Have you been faking our fucking friendship?! I swear to god, if you guys shut the club down for the drugs-"
"Ev," Jon says, putting his hand over my mouth. "Please, just calm down and shut up. They will explain everything. Just, let them."
He and I then lock eyes and just stare at each other for a while. Eventually, I nod, telling him that I'll do what he asked, which causes him to remove his hand. I then sit back in my bed and look back towards the two men in blue.
Ze takes a deep breath before he walks up to my bed. "Not everything I told you was a lie. Mike and I are dating and that is a secret. However, it is because we are partners, and have been for a few years now. After losing my first girlfriend and going through a depressive period, I met back up with Mike, who I knew from high school and had a slight crush on. He was in the police academy and was finishing his first year, while I was flunking out of college. He convinced me to go to the academy with him, and well, I loved it. I felt like I fit in well there, and it got Mike and I so close that we ended up dating by the end of my first year. After we both graduated, we were hired by the precinct in our hometown. After a few years there, we wanted to move somewhere else. We requested to stay together as partners due to the fact that we made a great team, and that request was granted. We were sent here and were put in charge of a missing person's and added to a new team for an important project."
"As you know," Mike jumps in. "The missing person's case was yours, but that was mainly to see if a pair of fresh eyes could see something the others missed. We weren't actually expecting to find you. At least, not alive."
"As for the project," Ze takes back over. "It was codenamed "Red Life". This project was to clean-up the nightlife around the city. Before we came in, there was a team of people clearing out the most disgusting pieces of shit for the most horrific shit imaginable and some lesser crimes. However, there was one club that the chief desperately wanted to check in on. That club being the "Big, Bad Panda". However, the chief had been trying to get people in for over a year and had gotten no luck."
"It made no sense why no one was getting in," Mike said, shaking his head. "Or at least, at the time it made no sense. Most of the guys that made up the team were extremely good looking, like myself."
"Watch yourself," Ze quickly replies as he rolls his eyes.
"It made sense afterward though."
Ze then nodded before he continued. "It was a stroke of luck that I somehow got hired in, and as Mike said, I found out why no one else got in. The regulars that came in, the officers, worked at our precinct. We quickly put the pieces together and figured out that they were leaking who was on the team, and since I was still new, they didn't know who I was yet, or that I was part of the team. Because of this, Mike and I had to get an office in our home for us to work out of to keep myself a secret."
"There was quite a bit that we learned about the club from the inside," Mike takes over again, shaking his head as he walks to the foot of my bed. "But the biggest thing that actually helped us was one of your ex-co-workers coming forward and giving us a lot of information."
"Though honestly, we wouldn't have even gone looking for him if it wasn't for you, Evan."
I feel my heart start to slow down when he says this, but I need to know, "Who gave you that information that you needed?"
"Ryan Werker."
My eyes instantly shoot open and I feel my heart start to twist and ache. "Ohm," I whisper, causing Jon to reach over and squeeze my hand.
"There's honestly a lot for you to hear about what's been happening," Mike then says. "But, I think that should wait for another time."
"Why?"
"Because," Ze then says. "We still need to tell you what happened to you last night... I just fucking wish I could have been there sooner."
"Babe-"
"Wait," I say, sitting back up as my blood starts to grow colder. "What are you talking about?" I snap my head towards Jon, who looks away from me as tears start to roll down his cheeks.
"Evan," Mike then says, making me snap my head back towards him and Ze. "Please understand that we tried to get to you as soon as we realized something was wrong. Hell, Steven didn't even let me get in the car before he drove off! I had to get a ride from someone else so I could give him back-up!"
"But what happened?!"
"You were drugged, Evan," Ze then finally says, but it makes my heart stop. "Anthony put Rohypnol in your drink last night."
"Rohe-what?"
"Roofies, Ev," Jon said, causing my heart to shatter as I hear his shaky voice. "You were... you were roofied."
"Rohypnol or roofies are one of the easiest date rape drugs to get," Mike then explains. "It's really dangerous, acts as fast as fifteen minutes, and doesn't really have a taste or smell to it. However, there have been some cases where the victims have described that it made the drink taste different. Some say it tastes bitter, some say it made the drink chalky, while others say it tastes salty."
I feel my heart stop when he says that. My rum...
"I tried to get to you as fast as I could, but I didn't know where you were. I fucking went to the apartments first, which fucking," Ze then growls before he turns away from me again, pissed off at himself so clearly that even I'm worried about him. Mike quickly rushes over and tries to calm him down, while Jon finishes what they were saying.
"Ev, don't put the blame on them. They were trying to find you as fast as they could."
"Jon, what happened to me?"
"... That bastard took you to his home and he raped you. By the time Steven and Mike got there, he was already doing whatever he wanted to you."
I start to shake as tears start to build up and fall down my face. Memories flash by me like scenes from a movie that I hadn't seen in so long, but that had affected me so much that they just stuck with me. Memories of Panda... Happy... Happy memor...
I suddenly feel everything in my body start to force it's way up again, and thankfully Jonathan pushes the trash can into my lap, allowing me to throw up in it again. Every memory of him touching me, hugging me, making me undress in front of him or just the fucking idea of myself walking around with him watching me in that uniform suddenly makes me feel disgusted with myself. I trusted him so fucking much. I loved him. I thought of him as family...
After a bit, they take the trash can away and empty it in the toilet while I lay back in my bed and cry. Jon stays by my side, trying to calm me down while Mike and Ze leave to cool off, Ze still being pissed off at himself for "failing to protect me". I honestly don't blame him... I was the one who trusted Anthony enough to share a drink with him... I should have left when I had the chance.